


move forward and repeat after me

by defcontwo



Series: hold on to what we are, hold on to your heart [2]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in a long time, Jason feels like maybe he could build something for himself that is not ugly, that isn’t based on grief and anger. Or: the one where Jason and Cass eat ice cream and talk about their feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	move forward and repeat after me

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of "we were not tragedies" and will make more sense if you read that first, but it's not strictly necessary.

Their names have meaning - they have a weight to them, they stand for something bigger than flesh and bone and the scars that come from a life hard-fought by. 

A little boy named Bruce Wayne was afraid of bats and so he took this fear and he made it part of himself, he internalized it and used it as a symbol to strike terror into the hearts of those that go bump in the night. 

Robin was a nickname given by a loving mother, the bright lights of the circus creating the legacy that will shine a light into Gotham’s darkest corners - throwing shades of color into a monochrome world. 

The Red Hood served a purpose. He took on the name of a man whose face haunts his nightmares because he thought - well, if he was being entirely honest with himself, sometimes he realizes that he wasn’t thinking much at all. It was more of a gut feeling than anything else - his sanity balancing precariously on a razor’s edge, the Lazarus burning in his veins, and the belief that no matter how much blood spilled over his hands, it would never be enough. 

There were countless nights when he would awaken with numbers flashing behind his eyelids, a scream tearing itself out of his throat, and with rage so hot it felt as if he was still there, burning up in that goddamn warehouse.

Those nightmares will never leave him but they come less frequently now, replaced instead by the terrifying thought that keeps him up at night: the thought that if he lets it, the Red Hood will swallow him whole. 

There was a time when he would have welcomed that thought. Part of him still wants to let the anger and the frustration take over, and to focus it into the mission that he has set his life by for the last several years. 

But there is another part of him that aches with how lonely he is. A part of him that remembers what it was like to swing from Gotham’s highest buildings and not feel quite so weighted down by all of the shitty things that have happened to him throughout his life. 

He is not a Bat, not anymore, and he doesn’t think that he ever will be again. But he’s not the Red Hood either. 

Barbara Gordon - _his Batgirl, his tutor, his confidante, his friend_ \- reached out a hand and offered him a third path and he took it. For the first time in a long time, Jason feels like maybe he could build something for himself that is not ugly, that isn’t based on grief and anger. 

He just doesn’t have a fucking clue where that leaves him. 

+  


“I’d like to see you train first before you get out there.” 

Jason crosses his arms over his chest and gives Barbara an incredulous stare. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” 

Barbara arches an eyebrow at him. “Yes, you’re in shape and yes, I’m sure you can do absurd backflips off of high buildings like the rest of your species, but I’d be willing to bet my new shipment of computer parts that your hand to hand could use a little work.” 

Jason sighs, that familiar strain of resentment flowing through him that he always felt whenever Bruce would point out his mistakes in training. He knows that she’s right - he’s gotten too used to his guns and his close quarter combat skills have fallen out of use, but that doesn’t mean that he has to be happy about it. 

“You’re lucky that I like you so much, Babs.” 

She pointedly rolls her eyes at him but privately, Jason is pleased. They had always needled at each other through conversations that were half terrible flirtation on his part and half mockery on hers. Being around Babs like this is the first familiar thing from before that hasn’t felt spoiled by the yawning chasm of his own grief. 

“You gonna be the one to take me down a peg or are you dragging Drake into this little adventure?” 

“Neither,” comes a voice from the stairwell and Jason starts, whirling around to find a dark haired girl standing behind him. 

Cassandra Cain. Batgirl, his memory supplies. Another one of Bruce’s many strays. She breaks the mold, he thinks not without some small amount of bitterness. 

He hadn’t even heard her coming, so he supposes the rumors are true after all. 

He finds out just how true they really are inside of ten minutes as he lies flat on his back on the mats in Barbara’s training room, the beginning of a righteous bruise forming on his jaw. 

“Ow,” he says, prodding at the tender skin with a wince. 

“Have I made my point clear?” Barbara calls smugly from the sidelines. 

“This doesn’t mean that I’m out of practice, it just means that she’s better than me,” Jason wheezes out. 

“It can be both, little bird.”

Cassandra just laughs.

He spends the better part of the next hour getting his ass kicked all over the mats. Mostly it hurts like training hasn’t hurt since he first started with Bruce so many years ago when he was just some underfed street rat with no real experience. 

But it’s also fun. 

He wastes too much time at first trying to feel Cassandra out before realizing that that’s not going to get him anywhere. She reads his every move and counterattacks before he can follow through, so Jason spends the remainder of their session trying to be as unpredictable as possible. Most of the time, it doesn’t work, but he catches her off a few times and he chalks those up as personal victories. 

It forces him to be creative in a way that feels more natural to him than Robin’s regimented routines ever did. The mesh of raw instinct and discipline gets his blood pumping. 

“Wrap it up,” Barbara calls out at last. 

Cassandra takes advantage of the distraction to sweep his legs out from under him and he hits the mat again with a loud “oof.” 

“Not bad,” she says, grinning down at him and offering a hand up from the mat. “Do you want to get some ice cream?” 

“You buyin’, B-Girl?” 

Cassandra nods. “Consolation prize.” 

Jason huffs a laugh as he takes her hand and heaves himself up from the floor. “Yeah, alright.” 

\+ 

“I’m gonna be one giant bruise tomorrow, you know,” Jason says as he lowers himself gingerly onto the picnic table bench. 

There’s a park around the corner from the Clock Tower and Cassandra had stopped into a convenience store along the way to buy them ice cream. She quirks a smile at him as she pulls the carton of ice cream and two plastic spoons out of the plastic bag, offering him one. 

“Incentive to get better,” she says simply. 

“What are you, psychic or something,” Jason says, finally catching sight of the “Neapolitan” label on the side of the ice cream carton.  
Cassandra shakes her head as she eases the lid off of the carton. “Your favorite, right?” 

“Yeah,” Jason says, digging his spoon in. 

“Bruce told me.” 

“Oh.” He swallows and the ice cream doesn’t feel right going down, like it has to make its way around a lump in his throat that wasn’t there a minute ago. “What else did the old man tell you about me?” 

“You also like cars, girls, getting into fights, and the color green,” Cassandra says, as if reciting a list from memory. “He took me to meet you once. Well. Your grave.” 

“Well, isn’t that just typical,” Jason says, growling a little. 

It would be just like Bruce to bring all of his little Batkids to come see the fuck up’s grave - to wax nostalgically about lost youth while teaching a lesson to be better, faster, stronger - don’t be like Jason or else you’ll wind up just as dead. 

“Well, I hate to break it to you, B-Girl, but your information’s outdated.” 

His mood has soured rapidly and he can see his harshness ruining what had been an otherwise good afternoon but he also can’t bring himself to stop. Jason pictures Bruce standing at his grave with Cassandra, with Drake, with fuck knows who else, and he wants to be sick. 

Cassandra meets his angry gaze with a frankness that makes him seriously consider whether or not she really can read his thoughts. “How so?” 

“Not too fond of the color green these days.” 

Green is the Lazarus Pit, green is the color rimmed around his eyes that scares the shit out of him, green is the jealousy and the rage that flows through his veins that he’ll never be able to flush out completely. 

“I’ve upset you.” 

Jason snorts. “Well spotted.” 

“He brought me out there so that I would understand. But I think it was Bruce who didn’t understand. You were always going to -- “ Cassandra stops mid-sentence and takes a deep breath, as if looking for the right words to finish what she’s trying to say. “Sacrifice yourself for another.” 

“That so, huh?” 

“It wasn’t....recklessness. You think your life is worth less.” 

A punch to the gut would have shocked him less. Jason drops his spoon onto the picnic table with a light thump, no longer hungry. 

“Isn’t it.” 

“I don’t think so,” Cassandra says quietly. “Neither did he.” 

Jason takes a deep shuddering breath as they sit in silence for several minutes, the ice cream melting between them. 

“Vintage motorcycles, eighties hair metal, boys with a dark sense of humor, and Jane Austen,” he says, breaking the silence at last. 

“What?” 

“That was a pretty short list B gave you. Those are some other things that I like. Just, you know. So you know,” Jason says, trailing off uncomfortably and wondering if he’d read the situation all wrong again. 

“Oh,” Cassandra says, smiling, and something in his chest loosens a little. “I hate Jane Austen. Too wordy.” 

She picks up his spoon and hands it to him again. “But I do like Maurice Sendak, rooftop tag, and girls who laugh too much for their own good.” 

“No such thing, B-Girl,” Jason says. 

She makes a quiet noise of assent. 

He feels tired and wrung out emotionally but she’s given him an idea that’s itching at the corner of his mind that he thinks just might fit. 

\+ 

“You’re going to look like a moving target,” Barbara says, eyeing his costume design plans with poorly disguised skepticism. “Don’t you think it’s counterproductive to give the bad guys something to aim at?” 

“Sorta my thing, though, huh?”

“Hmmm,” Barbara says, glancing between him and the sketch. 

The suit is a standard Kevlar body suit - not unlike Nightwing’s but with heavier armor and a more practical utility belt. Every inch of it is black except for a jagged red x across the chest. 

“Alright, I’ll do some mock ups. You’re going with a domino, then?” 

“Actually, uh,” Jason says, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets nervously. “I was thinking of holding onto the helmet. Only painting it all black.” 

“It grew on you, huh?” 

“I don’t want to forget it completely,” he answers with a shrug. 

Barbara gives him a shrewd look but says nothing, her fingers already flying over her keyboard and uploading the design into the computer. 

“Got a codename yet?” 

“Yeah,” he says, “I was thinking Red X.”


End file.
